Trampoline: Good gift idea or liability waiting to happen?

So my wife came home from Black Friday shopping with a trampoline.
I am opposed to this idea; to having one in our yard.
I think it will be a pain in the ass to put together. It will kill the grass. It will not be a level place in the yard, which will cause more problems.
She thinks the kids will use it (the neighbors have one and the kids like to play on it). My sister bought one last year for her kids.

So my wife came home from Black Friday shopping with a trampoline.
I am opposed to this idea; to having one in our yard.
I think it will be a pain in the ass to put together. It will kill the grass. It will not be a level place in the yard, which will cause more problems.
She thinks the kids will use it (the neighbors have one and the kids like to play on it). My sister bought one last year for her kids.

Am I wrong?
Pros? Cons? Mini Ditka?

Thoughts?

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I was very against the idea when my wife decided we were going to get one when our kids were 6 and 9 or something like that.

From my experience, here are the answers to your question ...

Yes, it was a pain in the ass to put together, but it was easier than I expected. Took 2 of us about 6 hours to assemble, but neither of us is especially handy.

I don't remember the size of ours, but it's pretty easy to move when you're mowing the grass, so we haven't had it kill the grass.

If it's not at a level area, I hope you have the netting on the side of it. We didn't think that would make a big difference, but it did. Our kids would get to playing on it and bounce off that netting pretty hard, and it held them fine.

Our kids got a ton of use and fun out of it, and still do. One of their favorite things to do in the summer is set up a sprinkler under it during the hot weather and jump on it as the water sprays through the trampoline on them.

I talked to our insurance agent before we got ours, and he said there are 3 big things he recommends from a liability standpoint: Get one with the netting, make sure it's in a fenced-in yard (so the 3-year-old from down the block doesn't wander into your yard when you're not home, climb on it and break their neck), and spend a couple hundred dollars a year and get a big umbrella insurance policy - just in case.

We've been lucky in that we haven't had any broken bones yet. Not from the trampoline, at least.

If you talk to your insurance agent, you are never going to get a trampoline.

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Depends on what kind of agent you have. If you have a lazy agent who doesn't like to do anything beyond taking your premium checks, then you'll never get a trampoline ... or a motorcycle, a boat or jet ski, or a pool in your backyard, many kinds of dog breeds, etc.

If you have a competent agent who is willing to spend 10 minutes on the phone with you and can run through the liability issues and the different ways you can protect yourself, then you can make an educated decision.

If you have a competent agent who is willing to spend 10 minutes on the phone with you and can run through the liability issues and the different ways you can protect yourself, then you can make an educated decision.

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Like I said, once he talks to the agent, and sees the extra cost to properly insure the trampoline - unless he's Diamond Jim Brady, he ain't getting a trampoline.

If you have a competent agent who is willing to spend 10 minutes on the phone with you and can run through the liability issues and the different ways you can protect yourself, then you can make an educated decision.

Click to expand...

Like I said, once he talks to the agent, and sees the extra cost to properly insure the trampoline - unless he's Diamond Jim Brady, he ain't getting a trampoline.

Click to expand...

If he doesn't have an agent who can get him an 8-figure catastrophic (umbrella) policy for a couple hundred bucks a year, he needs to be more concerned with finding a new insurance guy than the question of a trampoline.